Many of your success or failures as an athlete is determined by your mindset and beliefs. Talent can only take you so far. Every day you walk onto the pool deck "everything you do, the actions you take, the way you train and perform" are all influenced by what you believe and who you are as a person.
Some of the beliefs that you have may be totally oblivious to you in your daily everyday lives. Here is a small list of some beliefs you may have as a swimmer: 
- Belief about how many events you can swim in a day and still do well.
- Belief how fast you think your turn is.
- Belief how far you can go off the block.
- Belief that the water needs to be a certain temperature to swim fast.
- Belief of how much pain your body can accept during training .
- Belief in which events you will do well in and the events you'll do poorly in.
- Belief about whether or not you will still do well if someone passes you.
Any of these ring a bell in your head? This belief system comes from real life experiences, things that maybe you have gone through as a swimmer during your life. In life your belief system is always changing and evolving as you experience new things, new environments and meeting new people. This is called life experiences and it's a process we all go through.
Now, I will put this out there to all of you. As in life, we talk a lot about the "process" in swimming. As in life the process is always evolving in your swimming and along with that is your belief system that will also change. Whenever you do something for the first time your belief begins for that activity and the more you do it your belief system starts to evolve with experience. In swimming this occurs with your races and in the way you train and they will change over time. In order to get better your beliefs need to change over time. These beliefs are powerful things and if you keep repeating them in your head, you start to believe them.
When can your belief system fail you? Let's look. We will use a couple of examples, the first one is the belief that you need a particular suit to be able to perform well and the second is that you believe you need a particular lane to swim fast. You believe that in order to swim fast those two things have to happen which is silly because in reality you can race in any suit from anywhere in the pool. The fact that you believe it to be true is enough to influence the way you will swim.
Now let's take a look at our Senior Prep practice on Tuesday and our set of 3x150 (#1 100 free/50 stroke. #2 50 free/100 stroke. #3 150 stroke). all at a fast blue pace. For the very first time I watched a few of you actually go outside your comfort zones and actually get a true taste of becoming uncomfortable. We were trying to duplicate race conditions and in the process start to build positive beliefs in your head. If you don't believe in something or that you will benefit from it, it may prevent it from happening.
FALSE BELIEFS to TURN AROUND IN YOUR HEADS (from Will Jonathan "The Swimmers Mind")
- The only events I can swim well are my own. Never limit yourself.
- I can't swim more than ? events in one day. Your body can handle it. You've done the work.
- I'm not a fast swimmer. Don't label yourself, it might stick.
- I can't win if I start from behind off the start. The race is not over until your hand hits the pad.
- The pool is slow. Your performance is determined by you not the pool.
- I can't win from an end lane. This past Olympics a gold medal was won from lane 8.
- I could never swim that fast. All athletes have untouched potential, never limit yours.
- I can't win if someone passes me. If you can't lead a race, you can always come from behind to win.
- I can't finish strong once a race starts to hurt. Positive attitude towards pain. Once it starts to hurt go hard for a few strokes and it will pass, but if you give in it will hurt all the way to the end.
- I could never be as fast as them. Never put someone else on a pedestal or think of them as untouchable, you'll never catch them.
Comments